Trial and Error
by GeorgeWeasleyIsMYObsession
Summary: As her third year of Hogwarts looms and a strange house-elf appears to coax Harry to stay away from the school, Nessa can already tell that this year will likely be just as stressful for her as the last. And with new-found attention from George Weasley and Ginny Weasley's strange behavior, how will she ever survive this one?
1. Chapter 1

**So I have decided, for the 100** **th** **time, to attempt to rewrite this plotline. Partially because the idea of Harry having a sister appeals to me and partly because there are not nearly enough twin stories on this site and they seem to be dwindling faster every day. I cannot guarantee that this will end up being more satisfying than any of my other attempts, but as I grow older I feel that I expect more out of my characters and how I want them to progress. So I can promise to try to make the ride as enjoyable as possible. I will also say that, as it is my freshman year in college, I may not be able to update quite as frequently as any of you lovely readers (or even myself) would like me to. Just stick with me.**

 **As a side note: Constructive Criticism is welcome but no Flames please and thank you. If, at any point in the story, there is something you wish to see, feel free to drop a review or message me to let me know and I'll do my best to include it.**

 **Anyhow, enjoy the first chapter and I will try to update as soon as possible!**

 **Disclaimer: I'll only do this once because it gets annoying after a while, but I do not own any characters except my OCs. All story line plot and characters belong to JK Rowling and/or Warner Bros. and I make no profit off this story.**

* * *

 _ **Summary: As her third year of Hogwarts looms and a strange house-elf appears to coax Harry to stay away from the school, Nessa can already tell that this year will likely be just as stressful for her as the last. And with newfound attention from George Weasley and Ginny Weasley's strange behavior, how will she ever survive this one?**_

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

It was not for the first time that Vanessa Potter found herself basking outside in the afternoon sun, reading one of the many novels that she'd found somewhere in the depths of her aunt's untouched bookshelf. There was nothing she loved quite as much as reading, and if it got her away from her family's death glares and angry spats then that was just an added perk. Aside from the fact, she needed a break from all of the happenings that occurred on Privet Drive and the end of her summer. Unlike Harry, the summer's end for Nessa came with mixed feelings of elation and dread.

Hogwarts was by far one of the most beautiful places that she had ever visited in the entirety of her life and the part of her that desired so deeply to travel could not help but be excited to see the castle again. Though this would be her third year at Hogwarts, there had yet to be any site better than the one she glimpsed when the carriages rounded the corner and pushed their way past the gate. She enjoyed discovering the castle's secrets during her nighttime wanderings and she absolutely loved strolling through the castle grounds in the morning before breakfast. She loved the challenges of her coursework and lounging in the common room in the late evening when everyone had gone to bed. And she absolutely loved the food, something that was a commodity here at Privet Drive. Just thinking of the mashed potatoes and baked chicken and Yorkshire pudding and treacle tart made her mouth water with anticipation.

But with the return of Hogwarts came all of the other students as well. While Nessa was not entirely opposed to being around other people, she could admit that she wasn't exactly what one would call a _people_ person. She was perfectly amiable for the most part, but she was socially awkward and shy at the best of times and completely silent at the worst. Not to mention she found herself frequently overwhelmed by the constant socialization that her classmates seemed to enjoy so much and had a tendency to hole herself up in the library for days until she felt ready to see people once again. As such, she barely had any friends at Hogwarts and sometimes she dreaded being the awkward loner who followed her best friend around like a lost puppy because she really had no one else.

Her only friend, Victoria Hastings, was exactly her opposite: loud and obnoxious, opinionated, and rowdy. Her position as Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team also provided her with the social skills required to maintain a large group of friends. As different as they were, Nessa sometimes found it hard to believe that they had even managed a friendship at all. In hindsight, they almost hadn't.

Nessa had first met her on the Hogwarts Express playing a prank on another innocent first-year with two red-headed twins. Which normally may not have bothered her had the first-year not burst into distressed tears and run off in the opposite direction. She'd had no idea what they'd even said, but watching them snigger at another person's panic was enough to make her angry enough to dislike all of them. This was only amplified when she realized that Victoria, or Tori as she preferred to be called, was just as obnoxious and rude in class as she was to those in her year. It was not until Professor Snape, noticing her distaste for the other girl, had vindictively made them potions partners after Tori had blown up her cauldron trying to create a simple Cure for Boils. To his dismay, the two seemed to hit it off upon a few minutes of terribly awkward and tense minutes. They had been joined at the hip since.

Her friendship with Tori, however, did not extend to the Weasley twins. Not because she didn't like them, because she certainly found them amusing once she got past their sometimes insensitive pranks, but because they made her nervous in a way that Tori did not. If Tori could be considered rowdy, then the twins were positively explosive. And, while she had been invited to join them all on several occasions, she always found some excuse to avoid an encounter with them. The twins were likely the most well-known of anyone at Hogwarts. Their positions on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team coupled with their jokester persona and good looks made them quite easily the most popular pair of people to grace Hogwarts. She was hardly going to spend time with them and awkwardly make a fool of herself.

With all of these feelings put together, it really was no wonder that she needed a break from her relatives and Harry. Reading was the easiest way to do so, but she had to be wary of her aunt catching her out in the backyard. It was well-known to the household that the bookshelf was used mostly for appearances sake. Her uncle and Dudley were hardly intelligent enough to determine where to start reading and her aunt was always too busy spying on any of the neighbors to spend her time reading. Even Harry couldn't be seen near the thing. If there was one thing that Harry wanted to read, it was their schoolbooks and homework under the cupboard they'd once shared. Something Nessa found ironic, considering that he never wanted to complete any of his homework while they were actually at Hogwarts.

Despite this lack of interest in the family's reading material, if Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon caught wind of her taking books off of the perfectly managed and underused bookshelf, they'd have a conniption. The books were solely for the Dursleys and she was not entitled to touching things that did not belong to her. For reasons unknown to her, her aunt and uncle seemed to have a much stronger dislike for her than they did for Harry.

So it really was no surprise that the sound of the back door slamming made her jump so high that the book she'd been reading fell out of her hands and she had to scramble to hide it behind her back. She sighed in relief when she recognized it was Harry.

She'd disappeared after having helped him make breakfast, skipping the meal herself in her attempt to escape her family and enjoy the warm, sunny day. She'd heard the argument about Hedwig from upstairs before she'd managed to sneak outside. To top it off, she and her brother had been told several times that they would be staying upstairs for the duration of their uncle's dinner party tonight, pretending they didn't exist. But in her own attempt to get some peace, she'd forgotten that today was much harder on Harry. The Dursleys had, of course, pretended to forget that it was Harry's birthday, something that angered her a great deal.

Sighing dejectedly, she stood up to take a seat next to him on the garden bench and caught the tail end of his sarcastic birthday wish.

"…Happy birthday to me…"

He stared miserably into the garden hedge without saying anything to her at all. She rested her head on his shoulder and held the silence; she didn't want to push him to talk, especially because she had been insensitive to him before in her own attempt for alone time.

She also knew that it was hard for him, having his birthday in the summer, because he had not received any cards or gifts from anyone at Hogwarts. Not from Hagrid, who was rather fond of him, or from his best friends, Ron Weasley (she seemed to be surrounded by Weasleys these days) and Hermione Granger. His eager behavior and happiness at being able to return to Hogwarts at the end of the summer had slowly begun to dwindle to nothing when he hadn't received one single letter from any of his friends. In a selfish way, Nessa was happy that his friends hadn't written him. She'd always been jealous of Harry's ability to acquire friendships with ease, despite his shy personality. Which of course made her feel guilty for even thinking it to begin with.

"Do you ever think about it?" Harry asked quietly, disrupting her thoughts, his gaze never leaving the hedge. "Leaving here, I mean. Just the two of us."

"A couple times," she admitted, leaning her head back to look at the sky above them. "But then I think about how we could never possibly survive without money and food and water—"

She was interrupted by the laughter that erupted from her brother. He was finally looking at her, mirth in his eyes.

"Always practical, you are," he said, shaking his head and looking back at the hedge, this time with a grin on his face.

She shoved him off the bench.

"Well one of us ought to be." She said, rolling her eyes as he continued to snigger below her.

They had been so interested in their own conversation that neither had heard the back door close as their cousin walked outside. It was not until they heard his loud, jeering voice that the Potter siblings stood to face him, Harry standing slightly behind his sister's smaller frame, a matching glare on both of their faces.

"I know what day it is," Dudley jeered, coming right up to him.

"Well done," said Harry. "So you've finally learned the days of the week."

"Today's your birthday," sneered Dudley. "How come you haven't got any cards? Haven't you even got friends at that freak place?"

"The only cards you get are from your parents, you great spoiled prat," said Nessa, her voice cold. "Run along, Diddykins. Mummy misses you."

She'd never quite seen her cousin swell to that particular size before, but she smirked at having angered him so quickly. Harry's voice interrupted her amusement.

"Better not let your mum hear you talking about my school," said Harry coolly.

Dudley hitched up his trousers, which were slipping down his fat bottom. "Why're you staring at the hedge?" he said suspiciously.

"I'm trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire," said Harry.

Dudley stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his fat face. "You c-can't — Dad told you you're not to do m-magic — he said he'll chuck you out of the house — and you haven't got anywhere else to go — you haven't got any friends to take you —"

"Jiggery pokery!" said Harry in a fierce voice. "Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly —"

"MUUUUUUM!" howled Dudley, tripping over his feet as he dashed back toward the house. "MUUUUM! He's doing you know what!"

Harry would normally have laughed at having scared Dudley so easily, but his words seemed to have hit him hard. He sat dejectedly back on the garden bench, glaring sullenly at the hedge once again. Nessa crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm sure Ron and Hermione are just busy, Harry." She said softly. "You'll probably hear from them soon."

Harry opened his mouth to say something when he jumped up out of his seat, staring at the hedge with wide eyes.

"Did you see that?!"

Nessa eyed the hedge warily before looking back at her brother.

"See what, Harry?" she said slowly, looking back and forth between him and the hedge that Harry was still staring at.

"There was—someone was staring at us."

Nessa took a step back in reflex, watching the shrubbery in nervous anticipation. Never mind the fact that it was completely ridiculous for anyone to be staring at them from inside a hedge in their backyard.

"I…I don't see anything, Harry." She hesitated, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at her brother.

Harry spun around to look at her, his hand still pointed at the shrub, and opened his mouth to say something when the sound of their aunt yelling at them from inside the house reached their ears. They gave each other a look before marching themselves inside to face their punishment for tormenting poor, innocent Dudley.

Nessa hesitated behind her brother in stepping over the threshold, looking back at the hedge they'd been watching earlier in a last attempt to see what he had seen. When nothing crazy appeared, she sighed in relief and followed him into house, closing the door with a snap behind her.

* * *

They paid dearly for their moment of fun. Though Nessa had barely said a word to Dudley at all, her aunt seemed to believe that she had been encouraging Harry to frighten her son. It didn't matter that neither the hedge nor Dudley had met any harm, so it was unlikely that Harry was doing any magic at all. She'd sent Harry outside to do yardwork and had kept Nessa inside to scrub every crack and crevice of the house before the Masons came over for dinner.

It was not until half-past seven that she and Harry had finished with their work, the smell of roast in the oven permeating the house and the sight of a pretty whipped cake sitting atop the fridge. The Potter siblings, however, were both given a plate with two lumps of bread and a slice of cheese. Nessa sighed, her stomach rumbling from lack of food the entire day, already regretting having skipped breakfast as she choked down her meal and was shooed up to their shared bedroom by her aunt.

She tiptoed quietly behind Harry and shut the door softly behind her, before turning around to collapse on the bed with her brother when she noticed Harry had frozen just behind her.

She pushed him in the back.

"Move, you oaf. I'm exhausted."

He stepped aside to show her the tiny creature sitting on the bed, staring at them with green eyes the size of tennis balls, floppy ears, and a disgusting tea towel wrapped around his body.

"That's the thing that was staring at us earlier." He whispered in her ear.

She shot him a panicked look, not feeling at all comforted by the fact as she heard her relatives greeting the Masons downstairs. She wrapped her arms around herself self-consciously and was about to ask the creature to leave before her brother spoke from her side.

"Er—hello" said Harry, nervously.

He took a step forward, but Nessa grabbed his arm to pull him back.

"Are you mad?" she whispered fiercely. "You don't even know what he is. He could be here to kill you."

"Yeah, well he'll have to get in line." He whispered back before smiling awkwardly at the creature sitting on their bed. He sidestepped over to the desk chair and sank into it.

Nessa continued to stand with her back to the door, her arms crossed over her chest awkwardly, eyeing the creature on her bed shrewdly. He didn't look particularly dangerous to her. And he was a great deal shorter than her so she figured that if he made any sudden moves she could just give him a solid kick across the room.

"Harry Potter!" the creature said, in a high-pitched voice that grated on her ears and may or may not have traveled down the stairs. "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir…Such an honor it is…And you Miss Vanessa…"

"Call me Nessa," she replied automatically at the same time that Harry stuttered out a thank you and asked his name.

"Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf," he replied in his squeaky voice.

Nessa had read about house-elves briefly in one of her days hiding out in the library and relaxed minutely. They were not known to be very violent creatures by nature, but she did not know whose family this elf belonged. More than likely a prominent and rich pure-blood family.

She was startled from her thoughts when Dobby let out very noisy tears.

" _S-sit down!_ " he wailed. " _Never…never ever…_ "

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I didn't mean to offend you or anything —"

"Offend Dobby!" choked the elf. "Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard — like an equal —"

Harry, trying to say "Shh!" and look comforting at the same time, ushered Dobby back onto the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed on Harry in an expression of watery adoration.

"You can't have met many decent wizards," said Harry, trying to cheer him up.

Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

Nessa shot forward much faster than Harry to rip him away from the window and pulled him to sit on the bed, where she soon joined him.

"Don't — what are you doing?" Harry hissed, springing up put of his seat in shock— Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against the bars of her cage.

"House-elves are enslaved, Harry," Nessa spat with disgust. "Anytime they step out of line they're asked to punish themselves or suffer beatings from their masters."

She'd only read a little about house-elves that day, but she'd learned enough to be disgusted by their treatment. In some ways, she couldn't believe how accepting the Wizarding World could be, and how they could be so barbaric and oppressive in others.

"Dobby had to punish himself, sir," agreed the elf, who had gone slightly cross-eyed. "Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir…"

"Your family?"

"The wizard family Dobby serves, sir… Dobby is a house-elf — bound to serve one house and one family forever…"

"Do they know you're here?" asked Harry curiously.

Dobby shuddered. "Oh, no, sir, no… Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —"

"But won't they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?"

"Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments…"

Nessa tried to not look at him with pity. Of all of the things that Dobby must want and wish for daily, she doubted it was her pity.

"But why don't you leave? Escape?"

"A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free… Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir…"

Harry stared. "And I thought I had it bad staying here for another four weeks," he said. "This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Can't anyone help you? Can't I?"

Almost at once, Harry wished he hadn't spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.

"Please," Harry whispered frantically, "please be quiet. If the Dursleys hear anything, if they know you're here —"

Nessa tried to soothe the elf as calmly as possibly, despite her own panic that the Dursleys would hear him wailing and forbid them from ever seeing the daylight again.

"Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby… Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew…"

Harry, who was feeling distinctly hot in the face, said, "Whatever you've heard about my greatness is a load of rubbish. I'm not even top of my year at Hogwarts; that's Hermione, she —"

But he stopped quickly, because thinking about Hermione was painful. Nessa tried not to pity him too.

"Harry Potter is humble and modest," said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. "Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —"

"Voldemort?" said Harry.

Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned, "Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!"

"Sorry," said Harry quickly. "I know lots of people don't like it. My friend Ron —"

He stopped again. Thinking about Ron was painful, too.

Dobby leaned toward Harry, his eyes wide as headlights.

"Dobby heard tell," he said hoarsely, "that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time just weeks ago… that Harry Potter escaped yet again."

Nessa tried not to be annoyed with Dobby's high praise and open curiosity of Harry. As modest as her brother was, she had a hard enough time trying to keep Harry in line without other people showering him with compliments.

Harry nodded and Dobby's eyes suddenly shone with tears. "Ah, sir," he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. "Harry Potter is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door later… Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts."

* * *

Nessa stared out into the night sky, looking out at the stars three days after their encounter with Dobby. Well, looking out at the stars to the best of her ability with the bars that impeded on her ability to see much at all. She could hear Harry snoring loudly on the floor behind her, but her insomnia seemed too strong to pass tonight.

She sighed, curling her legs up into her chest and resting her forehead on the cool window.

In hindsight, she really should have been faster in grabbing Harry when he'd raced downstairs after Dobby in an attempt to snatch his stolen letters. Really, it would have just been easier for Harry to lie and say that he wouldn't return to Hogwarts in order to get his letters and rid himself of Dobby's pestering. Her brother, though dishonest when it was necessary to tell the truth, also had a tendency to be honest when it was best to lie.

Upon the disastrous end of Uncle Vernon's dinner party and subsequent loss of a promotion, the Dursleys had placed bars on their windows, a deadbolt on their door, and a cat flap to pass one bowl of cold vegetable soup through for both her and her brother to share. It had been three days since Nessa had eaten a decent meal and holding her bladder until they let the pair of them out twice a day was beginning to irritate her to an end she'd never reached before.

She'd never quite been more excited to return to Hogwarts. And like an answered prayer, she was startled awake moments later by none other than Ron Weasley and his mischievous twin brothers.

* * *

 **So, there we have it. The first chapter. I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again, but the next update will feature our favorite twins and we'll get to meet Tori! Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ages later, I am finally attempting an update. I do apologize for the long wait. Enjoy!**

 **-o0o-**

The air completely left Nessa's lungs as she stared at the three boys before her in shock. The shock of seeing them outside her bedroom window quickly morphed into elation and she stepped forward to push open the window so that she could speak to them through the bars that locked her in this hellhole of a house.

That was when she realized what she was actually seeing. In her elation at seeing the Weasleys she hadn't really thought to consider how they'd appeared to be sitting outside her two-story window. Now that she noticed the flying blue Ford Anglia, she nearly had a heart attack. Of course none of them seemed too concerned by the fact. As though a flying car in a muggle neighborhood were a totally acceptable notion.

"How on Earth—" she breathed, as the twins continued to grin at her from the front seat.

"Wake up Harry." Ron said without preamble, though he was grinning just as widely as his brothers.

She rolled her eyes before she glowered at him.

"Did your mother teach you no manners, Ronald?" she snapped, as she spun on her heel to shake her snoring brother awake.

"She did," Fred grinned.

"He's just too much of a stupid prat to use them." His twin finished for him. Ron scowled at them both in response.

She was saved from thinking up a response when Harry finally noticed who exactly was waiting outside their window. His mouth fell open.

" _Ron!_ " he breathed, creeping towards the window. "Ron, how did you—what the-?"

"All right, Harry?" George asked from his position in the passenger seat.

"What's been going on?" Ron said. "Why haven't you been answering my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd gotten an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles—"

"It wasn't me—and how did he know?"

"He works for the Ministry," Ron said, waving his hand through the air as though that detail wasn't important. "You _know_ we're not supposed to do spells outside school—"

Harry shot the car an indignant glance, and opened his mouth, most likely to mention that Ron was very obviously using some type of magic if he were sitting in a flying car. She rolled her eyes once more before rushing forward to speak with the brothers once again.

"Please tell me that the lot of you have come to get us out of this place." She said before Harry had the chance to speak his mind.

"We're taking you home with us." George confirmed, his grin spreading when she immediately began grabbing random objects around the room and shoving them into a bag. Harry's response was a bit more belated.

"But you can't magic us out either—"

"We don't need to," Ron said, jerking his head towards the front seat with a grin. "You forget who I've got with me."

Nessa paused in her excited packing to watch the boys curiously. Though she had no doubt that they had every intention of breaking them out—and succeeding—she wasn't sure exactly how they planned on doing so. She raised an eyebrow when Fred threw the end of a rope to Harry.

"Tie that around the bars." He explained.

"If the Dursleys wake up, we're dead." Harry said, obeying the order as he did so.

"Don't worry." Fred assured. "And stand back."

Nessa shot backward as fast as possible. She might have heard one of the twins chuckle at her response to the command, but her heart was beating too fast for her to take notice. Considering her knowledge of the twins and their antics, her unease was entirely justified. It was just as likely that they would blow out the window to aid in their escape.

She really shouldn't have worried so much because Fred merely pulled the car away from the window and revved the engine until the bars on the window began to pull apart from the window with a crunch. The car shot straight up in the air, the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. As Harry ran back to the window with a disbelieving, almost hopeful grin, Nessa listened anxiously for any noise that could alert them to the Dursleys having awakened by the racket. Thankfully, the sound of her uncle's snores were the only sounds to be heard.

The Ford Anglia was now safely floating in front of their window again, the bars having successfully been pulled into the back seat.

"Get in," Ron said.

"But all our Hogwarts stuff—our wands—my broomstick—" Harry stuttered in distress.

"Where is it?"

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room—"

"No problem," George interrupted. "Out of the way, Harry."

Fred and George climbed catlike through the window into their room. Nessa stepped back from the door, as George pulled an ordinary hairpin from one of his pockets and began to pick the lock. Nessa raised her eyebrow in question. Fred was the one to answer.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick, but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they're a bit slow."

She snorted. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know under what circumstances the twins had decided they needed a skill such as this one. She just decided to thank her lucky stars that they weren't quite as narrow-minded about muggle means as the rest of the Wizarding World appeared to be.

There was a small click and the door swung open.

"So—we'll get the trunks—you finish grabbing anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron." George whispered to the pair of them, as they disappeared onto the dark landing with a whispered warning from Harry to avoid the bottom stair.

Nessa immediately obeyed. She had never been more eager to leave this house. She hadn't eaten much in days; They'd given them very little and she had shared the majority of her food with Harry and Hedwig. She hadn't been much able to sleep and being stuck in this room had made her both surprisingly stir-crazy and more and more depressed.

She passed her bag through to Ron, just as the twins appeared with her trunk. They set it on the ground before her and then disappeared to retrieve Harry's. Upon their return Fred and Nessa climbed into the front seat to help Ron heave the trunks into the back seat of the car, as Harry and George pushed from the inside.

All went smoothly as the trunks were cramped to fit into the back and George moved his gangly form around the back seat to slide into the window seat, squishing Nessa between him and his brother with a wink. It was only when Harry began to climb into the car that all hell broke loose.

In hindsight, she couldn't believe that Harry had forgotten to grab Hedwig. To be honest, she wasn't sure how _any_ of them had forgotten to grab Hedwig before they climbed into the car. They may never have noticed that they'd forgotten to grab her if it hadn't been for her unholy screeching.

Harry raced back to retrieve her cage and shove it through and into the car, as Nessa silently prayed that her uncle wouldn't hear the noise in the next room over. Of course, that was a long shot seeing as he had just been yelling at Harry that day about the bird's screeching while he was trying to sleep. It didn't necessarily come as much of a surprise when her uncle knocked on the door so hard that it burst open and caught Harry halfway in the act of escaping.

"Harry, for Merlin's sake, hurry!" she snapped at her motionless brother.

He immediately obeyed and scrambled to climb in the back seat.

"Petunia!" Her uncle roared, shooting forward faster than she'd ever seen him move to grab onto to Harry's ankle. "They're getting away! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!"

The four of them seized onto Harry's arms and tugged as hard as they could. Her uncle toppled out of the window and into the bushes below. Fred hit the gas so hard that Nessa was shot violently forward and was forced to catch herself on the dash board in front of her.

"Gods, Fred, are you trying to break my nose?" she said, as she pushed herself to sit back against the seat.

"You wanted to stay in that house, did you, Potter?" he said, conversationally as he twiddled with the steering wheel.

She narrowed her eyes at him dangerously.

"I suppose that you suspected he could fly after us then, _Weasley_?" She snarked back with a smirk, putting an extra emphasis on his last name.

George snorted from next to her and stretched his legs out in front of him and his arms across the back of the seat behind her. "She's got you there, Forge."

For a moment, Nessa was worried about Fred's response and chewed on her lip nervously, wringing her hands in her lap. She really did have a smart mouth when she wasn't careful enough to watch it. Which, now that she considered, was quite often. Not that Fred seemed to mind all too much. Though he seemed a bit surprised she'd said much, considering her usually silent demeanor, he continued smirking as he twiddled with the wheel. She supposed when you grew up with six other siblings, you learned to withstand a little ribbing. Regardless, she decided she would attempt to withhold her snark a little more valiantly.

George's hand on hers startled her back to reality and she forced herself to stop the nervous habit. When she looked up at him through her lashes, however, he was already handing the hairpin he'd had on his person to Ron, who promptly let Hedwig out to glide alongside them as they made their way to wherever the Weasleys lived. She was thankful he hadn't maintained his attention with her. She wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to deal with his questioning gaze.

By the time she forced herself to stop over-analyzing and focus on the conversation they were having, she caught the tail end of their conversation about Dobby.

"—Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," George was saying, his attention still on the backseat. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house…"

There was a bit of a silence following this pronouncement. Though she, and most of the rest of the school, knew the Weasleys were poor, she'd never really considered it all too much. None of the Weasley children seemed too concerned about the knowledge, though Ron oftentimes complained about their lack of money. She'd never actually heard the twins complain about their circumstances, however. They were so easy-going and fun that she never really imagined they complained about much. And though George's voice was mostly matter-of-fact, she still heard a bit of the resentment in his voice. She suspected the twins were both far too proud and far too grateful for the things they did have to find much room to complain most times.

Ron was the one to break the silence.

"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway. I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I thought it was Errol's fault at first—"

"Who's Errol?"

"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes—"

" _Who_?"

"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," Fred offered from the front seat. Nessa detected a hint of disgust in his voice and tried not to smirk.

She'd never spoken to Percy personally, but she'd seen him walking the corridors and he wasn't someone she'd much wanted to spend time with. Though she was a stickler for rules because her constant over-analyzing and anxiety called for it, she knew how to have fun on occasion. Percy looked like someone who would rather wilt up and die than even speak the word. And the twins, who lived life to the fullest, seemed even less likely to hang about him in their free time. Not to mention that their notorious rule-breaking probably led to a disgust in their brother's prefect status.

"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," Ron continued. "Said he needed him."

"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," George said, frowning in thought. "And he _has_ been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room…I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge…You're driving too far west, Fred," he added, reaching over Nessa with the arm that wasn't resting on the seat to tap the compass on the dashboard. Fred immediately fixed his mistake without comment.

Nessa could hear Harry and Ron continuing the conversation in the backseat and tried valiantly to pay attention, as her eyes started drooping. But the vibration of the car coupled with the heat that seemed to be emanating from the twins, who were both focused mostly on the road ahead, lulled her easily into sleep.

 **-o0o-**

It felt like only seconds later that she was jolted awake by the car hitting the ground. She gasped and shot forward and nearly did a faceplant into the dashboard. Would have if George hadn't slung an arm around her waist and pulled her back as quickly as she'd shot forward.

"Touchdown!" Fred said through a chuckle as he watched her cheeks turn a rosy pink.

Nessa ignored both him and his twin, who was still holding her steady against him and looked around at her surroundings.

They had landed next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, next to a rather lopsided house that was several stories high. It looked like it had once been a large stone pigpen, but had been accommodated to fit the very large Weasley family by adding rooms haphazardly around the structure. Nessa wasn't entirely sure she trusted the overall structure of the house, considering it looked very close to toppling over; she strongly believed the entire thing was held up by magic. There were four or five chimneys that lined the roof and a sign that read THE BURROW was stuck crookedly into the dirt.

Nessa decided she had never seen somewhere so beautiful.

"It's not much," Ron said.

"It's _wonderful_ ," the Potter siblings said at once, grinning.

They got out of the car.

"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," Fred said, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and Nessa and no one need ever know we flew the car."

"Right," Ron said, nodding in determination. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the—at the top—"

Ron had gone a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The rest of them whirled around.

Mrs. Weasley was marching across the yard, scattering chickens. Nessa had always assumed that Mrs. Weasley looked like a very kind woman, who seemed to dote on her five children every time Nessa had seen the family together. Now, she looked remarkably like a saber-toothed tiger that had no qualms about eating its offspring.

Nessa felt the twins stiffen beside her and felt her dread increase. She'd never seen the twins scared of anything.

" _Ah_ ," Fred said.

"Oh, dear," George said.

Mrs. Weasley came to a halt in front of them and Nessa realized she'd backed herself behind the twins and was once again wringing her hands. Their mother rested her hands on her hips and looked from one guilty face to the next. She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.

" _So_ ," she said.

"Morning, Mum." George said, in what Nessa assumed he thought was a jaunty, winning voice.

"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" his mother responded in a deadly whisper.

"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to –"

All three of her sons were much taller than she was, but they cowered as her rage broke over them. Nessa cringed and shielded herself behind George more thoroughly. He was so much taller than her, she doubted Mrs. Weasley could see her behind him at all.

" _Beds empty! No note! Car gone—could have crashed—out of my mind with worry—did you care?—never, as long as I've lived—you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy—"_

"Perfect Percy," Fred muttered derisively.

Nessa gaped at his audacity. _Was he mad?_

"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" Mrs. Weasley yelled, poking him in the chest. "You could have _died_ , you could have been _seen_ , you could have lost your father his _job_ —"

Nessa watched wide-eyed as Mrs. Weasley went on screaming for hours. She suspected she could have gone on for hours more, but she seemed to deflate with a rather large breath and turned to face Harry, who backed away quickly. Despite her hesitance to make a move in front of an angry Mrs. Weasley, Nessa couldn't hold in her snort of mirth at the sight.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry, dear." She paused. "Where on Earth is your sister?"

"Er, hi." Nessa said awkwardly as she shoved her way between the twins.

"Welcome, dear. Come in and have some breakfast."

She turned and walked back into the house and Harry made nervous eye contact with her as Ron nodded encouragingly behind them. She shrugged and followed behind the matriarch, Harry and the boys filing quickly behind her.

The kitchen was small and cramped. A large, scrubbed wooden table and chairs took up the majority of the room. Nessa picked the seat closest to the door without being at the end of the table. She was surprised when the twins sat on either side of her, Harry and Ron sitting directly across.

All of them were silent, as Mrs. Weasley bustled around the kitchen making breakfast, muttering to herself about her children and their antics. Occasionally she threw dirty looks at her sons as she threw ingredients into the pan.

Nessa found listening to her obvious displeasure quite awkward — after all, it was slightly her fault that the boys had even left the house to begin with — and busied herself with looking around the house.

The clock on the wall behind her had only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge were things like _Time to make tea_ , _Time to feed the chickens,_ and _You're late_. Books were stacked three deep on the mantelpiece with titles like _Charm Your Own Cheese and Enchantment in Baking_.

"I don't blame _you_ , dears." Mrs. Weasley assured the Potter siblings, making Nessa jump when she noticed how close she was standing to her. She dumped eight or nine sausages onto her plate and then did the same for Harry. She stared at her brother, wide-eyed; the only time she'd ever eaten this much food was at Hogwarts. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written Ron back by Friday." She turned to Nessa again and added three fried eggs to her plate. "Tori tells us such nasty things about those Muggles you live with. But really, flying an illegal car halfway across the country — anyone could have seen you—"

"It was _cloudy_ , Mum!" Fred said.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snapped at him, and he promptly closed his mouth, though he glared viciously at his plate of sausages, as though they'd done him a great disservice.

"They were starving them, Mum!" George implored.

"And you!" she snapped, though her expression had softened as she continued to pile food on their plates. Nessa wasn't sure she could eat the entirety of what was already there.

At that moment, there was a sound of feet bounding down the stairs. A second later, a small red-headed figure in a long nightdress appeared in the kitchen and gave small squeal before running out again. Nessa grinned at the sound of the tinkling laugh that followed the girl's departure. It sounded loudly through the kitchen, as another girl swung around the doorframe and into the kitchen.

She was much taller than Nessa — as most people were these days — but still quite a bit shorter than any of the Weasley boys. Her curly black hair was still a wild tangle around her head, though it was obvious she had been awake now for quite some time. There was no sign of sleep in her grey eyes and she'd applied a light layer of make-up to her face. She'd partially dressed for the day in jeans and a long T-shirt that was very obviously too big for her.

"Ginny, come back!" Tori yelled through a chuckle, her eyes rolling to face the group that was sat at the kitchen table. "Nessa! Oh, what a surprise!"

Fred and George snorted into their plates as their mother wheeled around with a glare, her hands resting on her hips. Unlike the Weasley boys, Tori didn't cower at the sight of her rage. Instead she smiled innocently and braced herself for the explosion.

"Victoria Hastings, don't you go on acting as though you didn't know where this lot had gotten off to this morning. _You three,_ " she snapped, waving her spatula menacingly at the twins and then back to her surrogate daughter. "have caused me more problems than all of my other children combined! I've no doubt the three of you cooked this up together in that blasted room and it was _completely_ irresponsible!"

The tirade seemed to do very little to Tori's bubbly mood. She simply skipped around the table to kiss the woman on the cheek.

"Sorry, Molly," she said swinging around the table and plopping herself into George's lap to steal one of the sausages on his plate.

"Oi!" he said, making a wild grab for it before she stuck the entire thing in her mouth and smiled at him sweetly.

"Who was that?" Nessa asked quickly, as she saw Molly's glare intensify from the corner of her eye.

"Ginny," Ron said. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer." He added to Harry.

"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry," Fred grinned, but then he caught his mother's eye and bent his head over his plate without another word.

Silence reigned at the table as the six of them cleaned their plates. Nessa was barely able to finish her own, despite the fact that she hadn't eaten a decent meal in days and felt very close to exploding by the time she pushed her plate away from her.

" _Blimey_ , I'm tired," Fred yawned as he did the same. "I think I'll go to bed and—"

"You will not," Mrs. Weasley snapped again. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again—"

"Oh, Mum—"

"And, you three," she said, glaring at Ron, Tori, and George. "You two can go up to bed, dears," she added to Nessa and Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car— "

"Hey!" Tori said, indignantly. "I didn't even fly it."

"All the same, you encouraged the behavior, so you'll join them."

"I'll help Ron," Harry offered, happily. "I've never seen a de-gnoming— "

"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work." She said. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject—"

George groaned. "Mum we know how to de-gnome a garden."

"Oh, he is marvelous," she said to Nessa, as she set a thick book titled _Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests_ on the table next to her.

As with every photo in the Wizarding World, the one plastered on the front of the book was moving; the man in the photo kept winking cheekily up at them. He had very wavy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and Nessa assumed he was quite good-looking, though she mostly thought he looked a bit like a girl.

"Mum _fancies_ him," Fred said in a very audible whisper.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Fred," his mother responded, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."

The Weasley children and Tori began to file out of the kitchen, yawning and grumbling. Harry soon followed. Nessa had only just begun to contemplate whether or not finding a bedroom to sleep in would have been considered rude when Tori stomped back into the house and grabbed her arm to tug her outside.

"Do not even try to go to sleep, Vanessa. I blame you for this," she said, as she dragged a sputtering Nessa out the door and after Weasley boys.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello lovelies!**

 **It's been awhile since I last updated and I apologize for that. I have so missed this story. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter, so let me know what you think. Hopefully, I'm able to update more frequently. Enjoy!**

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

It was days later that Nessa found herself wandering the Burrow alone. Tori had disappeared hours earlier, having become tired of lounging away in her and Ginny's room, where Nessa seemed very fond of hiding.

Nessa wasn't particularly offended. Tori had always led a much more active lifestyle than her, and she highly suspected that being away from the twins for so long was grating on the other girl's nerves. The three of them, while not nearly as inseparable as the twins themselves, were quite close. And, like the coward she was, Nessa was still avoiding the two boys like the plague. Of course, that was a rather hard thing to do when they insisted on sitting on either side of her at the dinner table and attempting to draw her out of her shell.

She puffed out a bit of air and pushed her hair back off of her forehead as she turned around on the stairs. Really, the amount she was struggling to walk them was a tad embarrassing. She'd made two loops already, which if it were the Hogwarts castle would have been an achievement. But seeing as the Burrow wasn't very tall, and the stairs weren't particularly steep she should have found it much easier to make a couple of trips from the top to bottom. The fact that she couldn't was proof alone that she needed to get out more.

She took a deep breath and glared at the top of the stairwell before forcing herself into motion again. Her legs were burning and her lungs were panting for breath, but the exercise was helping to clear her mind. She could almost convince herself to set aside her anxiety and just go bouncing into the twins' room, pretending to be as bubbly and comfortable with them as Tori. Of course, the exercise wasn't working up her nerve to do such a thing, as she'd hoped it would, but only to provide her a distraction.

Gods, she was pathetic. The twins were very friendly and she had absolutely no reason to be nervous around them. Granted, she was nervous and awkward around everyone and she didn't much understand it, but social situations and large crowds had always given her a great deal of anxiety.

She stopped to take a breather on one of the floors, leaning against one of the walls and trying not to let her legs give out.

"Why did I even decide to do this?" she muttered, leaning her head against the wall to stare up at the several other flights of stairs she still had to climb.

"I hear nutters talk to themselves."

Nessa jumped a mile in the air and jerked around to face whoever had interrupted her. Fred stood directly across the hall, leaning against the bathroom door with a smirk and sparkling eyes, as though he were trying not to laugh. She was betting he wouldn't be laughing if she smacked him.

Before she had the chance to consider the thought, he was walking towards her, his grin growing as she hastily stepped aside. Of either of the twins, Fred made her the most nervous. He was never cruel to her, but he seemed to be the more explosive of the two. George seemed a lot calmer and more docile. If either of the twins could be considered docile.

"All you had to do was knock," he said as he pushed open the door and entered his room.

Nessa's eyes widened when she realized she'd stopped just outside the twins' door. As the door swung open to reveal George sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a steaming cauldron and Tori lounging on one of the beds in an oversized sweater that had a large 'F' in the middle, Nessa wasn't entirely sure what she should be doing.

"Are you going to stand out there all day, darling?" Fred's voice pulled her out of her reverie.

Tori was now sitting up on the bed and looking at her quizzically, and George had looked up from the potions book he'd been flipping through. The attention made her panicky, but she ignored the feeling and reluctantly stepped into the room, closing the door soundly behind her.

The room was a testament to the twins' chaotic personalities. One of the bedspreads was a bright orange, the other a jarring magenta. Quidditch magazines and posters were hung around the room, and various knickknacks and strange objects were thrown haphazardly on the floor. Despite this, she was very surprised to note that the twins' room wasn't at all messy. Not entirely sure what she should be doing, she walked slowly to the unoccupied bed and cautiously sat down on it.

When the only response she got was a gentle smile from George, she leaned forward to see what the twins were doing. The content in the cauldron was bubbling ominously. It was an extremely thick concoction that she wasn't particularly familiar with.

"Is it supposed to be that thick?" Fred mentioned, grabbing the ladle and stirring the goopy mix that was in it.

Nessa didn't know why the texture was much of a concern, considering the color was a sick, putrid green. She scrunched up her nose just looking at it.

"It's supposed to be nougat, isn't it?" George said off-handedly. "I'm more concerned with the color. Don't suppose we can get anyone to put it in their mouth if it looks like that, do you?"

"Not a snowball's chance in hell," Nessa responded immediately. Tori snorted from behind the magazine she was reading. "How did you even manage to get it that color in the first place?"

"Not entirely sure…" George hummed, distractedly.

Nessa watched, intrigued, as the twins traded ideas on how to diffuse the color and added more ingredients into the cauldron, the color still remaining a disgusting green. It was only when she realized that Fred was about to drop in aconite leaves that she shot off the bed and grabbed his wrist.

"Are you mad?" she snapped, jerking the bottle from his hands.

"Excuse me?" he said in surprise.

"You're wanting people to eat this." She said as if it were obvious, but everyone was still staring at her as if she'd just lost her mind.

"So?"

" _So_ " she said, rolling her eyes. "Aconite leaves are extremely toxic and everything you've added to this potion is too weak to fight off its effects." When they still stared at her as if she were mad, she sighed. "You can't use aconite in a potion you intend to ingest. It'll poison you."

"Interesting," Fred said thoughtfully, as though poisoning someone to death were only a minor setback. "Don't they use aconite in Wolfsbane potions?"

"Yes, but only on the week leading up to the full moon." She said, climbing back onto the bed and laying on her stomach so she could face the twins. "That's the only time that it's safe enough for a human to ingest because their bodies are preparing to transform, so their genetic makeup isn't the same."

"So you're good at Potions then?" George said, looking up at her with a smile. "The theory of it is always a little complicated for me."

Tori snorted and rearranged herself in the same position as Nessa. "Good at it? She's a natural. You should see the way Snape dotes on her."

Fred and George stared at her in shock.

"I thought that was a rumor," George said at the same time that Fred said, "Snape hates Gryffindors."

Nessa squirmed under their scrutiny. "He's just misunderstood."

Fred snorted. "He's just a greasy git."

Nessa rolled her eyes. "I've heard what you two try to pull in his class. Blowing up Slytherins' cauldrons and setting off fireworks and dungbombs. If you're expecting a hug after that, you're obviously delusional."

Fred smirked at her. "He deserves it."

"So wait a second," George interrupted before his brother could start an argument. "If aconite is poisonous, then why in the bloody hell does mum keep it in her potions cabinet?"

Nessa shrugged. "It's pretty useful for gardens and such. Kills weeds, keeps away pests and insects, things like that. Muggles have the same kind of things for their gardens."

Tori snorted. "Explains why we found that in the very _back_ of her potions cabinet, then. That garden hasn't been weeded since before I moved in."

Fred shrugged. "Means she won't miss it then—"

"Which is good for us because I don't much fancy getting screamed at again." George finished. "Is there anything that could cancel out the effects of it?" he asked Nessa.

"Not entirely. There are ingredients in the Wolfsbane potion that somewhat mute the effects, but it still wouldn't be safe for any one of us to ingest on our own."

George sighed. "We'll have to look into it, Fred. We're trying to make their noses bleed, not outright kill them."

"Why would you want to make someone's nose bleed?" Nessa said, alarmed.

Tori rolled her eyes. "They're trying to get people excused from class. You know, swallow a candy and start gushing blood and be sent to the hospital wing, but you'd actually skip instead."

"Er, wouldn't it just be easier to skip entirely?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah, but we couldn't make a profit off of that." Fred said, as he attempted to scrape the potion they'd been making into the trashcan.

"We want to start a joke shop." George expanded. "You know, like Zonko's—"

"—Except more modern. Dungbombs are great and all, but they lack a certain…imaginative quality." Fred finished. George nodded enthusiastically and Nessa smiled at his passion for the idea. It was quite endearing.

"We want to do something more than that, you know." George said with a grin. "Aid all sorts of mischief makers—"

"Keep them talking about it and you'll find out why they don't have girlfriends." Tori deadpanned from Fred's bed. Both twins looked affronted at the suggestion.

"I'll have you know that there are plenty of birds that find me quite charming." Fred said sniffily. Tori snorted.

"Doesn't count if they're blind, Freddie." She sing-songed.

Fred chucked a pillow at her in response and a spark ignited in her eyes when it caused her to smack herself in the nose. Tori lunged at him in retaliation, beating the pillow he'd just thrown quite viciously at Fred's head. George closed his eyes in exasperation and jumped onto the bed with Nessa to avoid the two lunatics rolling around on the floor. Though Fred was laughing uproariously, Nessa was a tad afraid for his life; Tori's temper had always been quite spectacular, regardless of how ridiculously trivial the catalyst appeared to be.

Nessa tensed when she felt George lay on his stomach next to her, and attempted to move aside for him to fit better next to her. George laughed when she nearly rolled right onto the floor and quickly shot his arm out to pull her back. She blushed when she realized that they were so close that the side of her body lined up with his. She wasn't used to being this close to people. At least not anyone but Tori or Harry.

"I don't bite, you know." George said through a chuckle. "Besides this is my bed you're lying on and I can't enjoy the show from all the way over there." He finished, nodding towards the head of his bed.

Nessa looked down at her fingers as she toyed with the bright orange bedspread. George immediately stilled her hands with his own. She looked up at him in surprise, but he simply grinned at her before turning his gaze back to watch his twin attempt to fight off his temperamental best friend.

"Are they always like this?" Nessa asked in an attempt to distract herself from her own awkwardness.

George snorted. "Since I can remember. When we were younger, Fred convinced her that an entire spoonful of mud was chocolate pudding," Nessa wrinkled her nose in distaste and George laughed. "She chased him up the tree in the backyard and it took Mum two hours to convince him to come back down."

Nessa laughed at the thought of a little Fred Weasley cowering in a tree in an attempt to hide from a curly-haired little girl.

"I can't see Fred being chased up a tree by Tori." She admitted.

"Fred was always running from Tori. He used to whine about how she was a bully and tried to convince mum to stop letting her come to visit." George said, smiling fondly at the still scuffling pair on the floor. Fred had somehow managed to wrestle the pillow from her and was now attempting to pin her flailing arms and legs beneath him before she could do damage to his face. Nessa was amused to note that he was no longer laughing and instead looked extremely annoyed with her theatrics. "I think he was just jealous that me and Tori got along so well, honestly."

The last part didn't particularly surprise Nessa. Though she'd been privy to quite a number of rants about Fred, Tori had never spoken ill of George. The two of them seemed to have a much easier relationship than she shared with Fred. Nessa suspected it was because Fred and Tori both had similar volatile personalities that made it hard to avoid arguing.

"How'd the two of them become friends if he hated her so much?" Nessa inquired.

George shrugged, though he seemed to be a little less amused by the question. It was silent between the two for a long moment. Nessa was about to apologize for prying when he finally answered.

"The night that Tori moved in with us," he said quietly. "Mum tried to send her to Ginny's nursery to sleep for the night, but she refused. Ran right up to our room and crawled into bed with Fred and refused to budge when mum insisted she sleep elsewhere. Actually," he grinned. "She started wailing and Fred threw a huge temper tantrum until mum agreed to let her stay with him. He was very protective of her after that."

Nessa smiled sadly at the story. Though it was probably the sweetest thing she'd ever heard, the reminder of why Tori lived with the Weasleys was always a sore one. Tori refused to talk about it and no one else tried to bring it up. It had taken Nessa an entire year to learn what had happened and she suspected that it wasn't the complete truth; Tori insisted that she remembered very little of that night.

As far as Tori would say, her mother had been the only family she'd had left when the war ended. For reasons unbeknownst to her or the Weasleys, her father had abandoned them sometime after Voldemort's downfall and any other family she may have had had perished during the war. So when Voldemort's Death Eaters came knocking on their doorstep 3 years after the war had "ended", her mother had done her level best to hide Tori within the house. Arthur said it had taken them a couple of hours to find her in the nook that her mother had created in the closet wall, but he and Molly had instantly agreed to take her in. She'd been with the Weasleys ever since.

"Gotcha," Fred said triumphantly from his position on the floor, drawing Nessa's attention back to something far less melancholy.

Nessa snorted. Fred had finally managed to subdue Tori beneath him, though she was still kicking out her legs and sending him a death glare. Fred only grinned down at her from his position straddling her legs.

"George Weasley, tell your buffoon of a brother to get off of me this instant!" she snarled, attempting to pull her arms free of the death grip he had on them.

Fred tutted. "Always running to Georgie when you're in trouble. You leave him out of it."

George snorted. "Seconded. You did this to yourself."

Tori thrashed beneath Fred in response, but Fred only grinned wider and switched her wrists to one of his hands so that he could poke her in the side with his other. She squeaed and thrashed harder, as Fred laughed above her and continued to squeeze her sides.

"Freeeeed, stop!" she laughed, thrashing wildly beneath him in an attempt to dislodge him. "I'm sorry, I take it back!"

"I'm the most dashing bloke you've ever met, admit it." He said, grinning down at her and continuing to squeeze her sides while she thrashed beneath him. She glared at him in response, which was largely muted by the fact that she couldn't stop laughing. He smirked and doubled his efforts. "Admit it!"

"Alright, alright," she gasped. "You're the most dashing bloke I've ever met!"

Fred grinned triumphantly and rolled to lay next to her as she glared up at the ceiling. Fred was looking particularly smug when she smirked and shot up from the floor.

"Second only to George."

George laughed uproariously from his position next to Nessa, as Fred shot up to chase Tori down the stairs and out of the room.

"Come on," George said, still chuckling. "We should make sure they don't kill each other."

He rose from the bed and offered her his hand expectantly. She hesitated for only a second before taking it and allowing him to pull her after him.

* * *

It was only days later when their Hogwarts owls finally arrived at breakfast. It was both with excitement and disappointment that Nessa slid a finger beneath the seal and cracked it open. She had become quite accustomed to staying at the Burrow and had to admit that she was reluctant to return to her studies. The explosions from the twins' room had become less worrisome as the days went by and Mrs. Weasley's food was certainly just as delicious as the feast at Hogwarts. Not to mention Mr. Weasley's insistence that either her or Harry explain the intricacies of Muggle life every night at dinner, which she found to be extremely endearing.

She sighed as she looked down to read over her letter.

 _ **THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE:**_

 _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 by Miranda Goshawk_

 _Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

 _Spellman's Syllabery by Rosana Amorim_

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander_

 _Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart_

 _Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart_

"You've been told to get all Lockhart's books, too!" Fred said from next to her, as he leaned over to look at Harry's list. "The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan—bet it's a witch."

Nessa snorted when he caught his mother's eye and began to busy himself with the marmalade in front of him. He winked at her when his mum had returned to looking over Ginny's shoulder to see her list.

"That lot won't come cheap," said George with a quick look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are really expensive…"

Nessa met Harry's and Tori's eye uncomfortably, as she busied herself with another piece of toast.

"Well, we'll manage," Mrs. Weasley said, though she looked a little worried. "I expect we'll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny's things secondhand."

"Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked Ginny, in order to distract himself and Nessa from the awkwardness of the conversation.

Ginny nodded, her face flaming as red as her hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Nessa nearly choked on her toast in her attempt not to laugh, and was grateful no one else seemed to have noticed the younger girl, because Percy had walked into the kitchen and nearly sat on the family owl.

"Errol!" Ron said, taking the limp owl from his brother and tearing the letter from his leg. " _Finally_ —he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys."

He ripped open the letter and read it aloud to Harry, rolling his eyes when she mentioned being busy with schoolwork.

"— _and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet up in Diagon Alley?_ "

"Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all of your things then, too," Mrs. Weasley said, clearing the table. The children at the table nodded and tried to swipe the remaining food from the plates before she could begin to wash them.

"Who's up for a game of Quidditch?" Fred said, stretching his arms over his head before shoving one last piece of toast into his mouth.

Nessa eyed him with distaste, both due to the fact that she didn't particularly enjoy flying and his abysmal table manners. He grinned at her through his food and she hastily looked away. Ron, George, Harry, and Tori seemed ecstatic about the idea and raced up the stairs to change and grab their brooms before heading outside for the day.

"Would you like any help, Mrs. Weasley?" she offered quietly from her position at the table.

"Oh, no, dear," she said, patting her cheek fondly. "I'll be done with this in a jiff."

Nessa nodded and made her way back upstairs to Ginny and Tori's room and grabbed the Muggle novel she'd been reading. She figured that if she couldn't play Quidditch, she may as well bask in the beautiful day and enjoy her alone time. She found being alone was few and far between at the Burrow.

After several minutes of walking around the yard, she decided on a tree that was surrounding the paddock that the others were using as a Quidditch pitch, when she noticed Ginny hiding in the branches of one and tried not to laugh. She walked over to the tree and looked up at the younger girl.

"Ginny, right?" she questioned, lightly.

The younger girl nearly fell from the branches in surprise. Her face flamed bright red when she recognized who she was talking to.

"Er, hello, Nessa," she said, pulling at the bark on the tree as she pretended like she hadn't been caught spying on the boys and their Quidditch game. Though Nessa highly suspected that it wasn't the Quidditch game that had captured her interest, but rather the hero worship the youngest Weasley seemed to have of her younger brother.

Nessa eyed the younger girl, amusedly. She had come outside with the intent to read her book and get some alone time, but something about Ginny had her changing her mind.

"Mind if I join you?" she said, setting her book on the ground and beginning to climb the tree nimbly before the girl could respond. She'd settled comfortably on the branch below Ginny's when the younger girl finally stopped pulling the bark from the tree. They sat in silence for quite some time as Nessa watched the boys and Tori fly low to the ground and throw apples for each other to catch.

"He's very good," Ginny said, quietly. Nessa looked up with raised eyebrows and watched as her face flamed red once again as she continued to watch the game in front of them. "Harry, I mean. Ron said he was good, but I've never seen him play."

Nessa grinned at her before returning her attention to the game as well. She suspected that Ginny didn't imagine that Harry was bad at anything, but she refrained from saying so. She'd seen the twins and Tori take enough mickey out of the poor girl and figured she'd heard it all enough.

"He is," Nessa said, smiling fondly as Harry allowed one of the twins to try out his broom. She could hear the excited whooping as he raced around on it from her position across the pitch. "It's a bit unfair, really, considering how atrocious I am on a broom."

Ginny laughed. "You can't be that bad."

"I was shaking so bad my first flying lesson that I could hardly get my broom off the ground. Actually, it flew out from under me and I fell onto my arse before I got the chance." Ginny roared with laughter as Nessa avoided looking at her. "Tori will never let me live it down."

"I wish I had seen it." Ginny admitted, chuckling from her position above her. Nessa rolled her eyes, though the effect was diminished by the fact that she was grinning. She'd long ago accepted that she would never be able to fly on a broom, and she couldn't say that she minded all that much.

"Do you play?" Nessa asked, nodding over to game as she looked back up at the younger girl.

Ginny shrugged, though she was smirking in a way that reminded Nessa distinctly of the girl's twin brothers.

"I don't have my own broom yet, but I sneak out at night to play while my brothers sleep." She admitted. "They won't let me fly with them otherwise."

Nessa chuckled at the slight bit of resentment in her voice. "They mean well," she said, gently. "You're their baby sister. I'm sure they worry."

Ginny glared out at her brothers, and Nessa was surprised they didn't catch fire. "They don't worry about Tori and she's practically their sister."

Nessa snorted. "If they tried, she'd probably kill them. She doesn't exactly give them room to be protective."

"Sooo…. I should be angrier?" Ginny said, confused. Nessa laughed loudly and then tried to smother it with her hand.

"That's not exactly what I meant, though it seems to work for Tori." She said, giggling. "I mean that you shouldn't let them walk all over you. You aren't that much younger than Ron and Harry and wanting to fly isn't exactly asking for that much. Besides, I've seen the Weasley temper in action before and I highly doubt it skipped over you."

"OI! What are you two doing?" Ron yelled over at them, as the other children dismounted and began to walk over. Nessa rolled her eyes at his tone.

"Sorry, Ron, we must have forgot to ask your permission to sit in a tree." She snapped. The twins sniggered as Ron's face turned red. "I was simply talking to your sister while you lot excluded her from your fun."

"She's too young to play Quidditch." Ron said, dismissively. She heard Ginny huff from behind her. Nessa looked up at the younger girl pointedly with her eyebrows raised.

"Right," she said loudly, straightening in her position and glaring at her older brother. "You started flying much younger than me, Ronald Weasley, so don't try and use that excuse. Mum and Dad have said it's fine if I start flying, but none of you lot will let me borrow your brooms."

Ron sputtered beneath them. "Well that's beside the point."

Ginny huffed and jumped down from the tree as she glared at him.

"It's exactly the ruddy point, Ron." She snapped "I'll fly if I want to fly and I'll use your broom while I do it since you're such a prat. I'm much better at it than you, anyway."

Tori laughed uproariously as Ginny stomped her way back to the house, leaving Ron staring dumb-founded after her.

"Well how the bloody hell would she know? She's never flown before." He said angrily to Harry.

Nessa laughed lightly as she swung upside down on her branch before flipping herself onto the ground. She nearly ran right into Fred and blushed profusely when he grabbed onto her shoulders to steady her. He winked at her and she hastily turned away from him and followed after Ginny's footsteps.

She stopped when she felt a hand on her wrist. She turned to face a smirking George.

"Should I be worried about your influence on my sister?" he said, eyeing her pointedly and chuckling when she began to blush.

"I've no idea what you're talking about, George Weasley."


End file.
